Blindfold. Women and men
Most of the elite players were not really preoccupied about the blindfold event before the beginning of the SportAccord World Mind Games. Rapid and blitz were the really important ones and indeed we had great events! Blindfold was just a show.
Now everything has changed. After the second day of blindfold, the tension can be cut with a butter knife! They are happy to win and come out beaming after a well played game. These great chessplayers are accustomed to win and blindfold tests their ultimate skills of memory, visualization and calculation.
We have a sole leader after 5 rounds of the women’s competition – its Viktorija Cmilyte from Lithuania, who scored 4.5 points out of 5 games. Her games have been brilliant so far and we welcome the perfomance of this charming Lithuanian lady.
She is closely followed by the women’s world Champion Hou Yifan and if she falters this could be decisive with two round to play.
Both ladies face great opponents in the sixth round tomorrow and anything can happen!
In the men, Maxime Vachier Lagrave once again is showing his strength in blindfold chess this time but he is also closely followed by a number of players.
Official website: http://sportaccord2011.fide.com
She’s beautiful.
But Hou Yifan prevails. Hou will fly out of Beijing tonight for the Women World Chess Team Championship to be held in Turkey; arrives there tomorrow; starts playing on the 18th.
She caught flu during the Rapid Event at the World Mind Games. Otherwise, she was most likely to win the Rapid as well, to add to the 2 Golds she won at the Blitz and Blindfold.